The XML Files: All About Blogs and RSS — MSDN Magazine, April 2004
TiVo looks to tune in to advertisers
The company hopes advertisers will warm to its latest experiment, due out in the next few months. Known as Video-to-Video, the idea is to let viewers click a button on their remote control to immediately watch a 3-minute video describing products and services that might appeal to them. The marketing clips are promoted through small icons that appear on the TV screen as viewers fast-forward past regular ads.
Video-to-video is similar to a service TiVo has previously sold without much demand. But the company hopes the new promotions will better lure marquee advertisers. Many issues have yet to be worked out. But for advertisers, TiVo’s new feature could help usher in changes to TV advertising that ad executives say is sorely in need of an overhaul. [CNET News.com]
Dave Grohl on Paris Hilton
PARIS HILTON Her forthcoming singing debut: sign of the apocalypse or inevitable career move? Perhaps both. Either way, this baby’s going to get some serious play on this D.J.’s deck — right alongside Divine’s cover of “Name Game” and Steve Martin’s “King Tut.” Granted, I haven’t heard it yet, but I’m looking forward to this like I look forward to the next Christopher Guest movie. And she’s already made the video! [NYT Playlist]
Microsft Insight…
Microsoft’s MSDN Blogs site, here, is a treasure-trove of useful information, particularly for developers or IT decision makers. [Microsoft Monitor]
Small Business is Big Business
Microsoft is bidding adieu to its bCentral site of small business services and resurrecting it as the Microsoft Small Business Center Website. A transition is underway now, leading up to official closure of bCentral in early summer and complete migration of services and content over to the Small Business Center.
The move is an ambitious undertaking and part of Microsoft’s ambitious $2 billion investment in the small- and medium-business market. My report, “Investing $2 Billion on 45 Million: Microsoft Sales Assault Targets SMBs,” explores where the broader investment makes sense or comes up short.
Sometimes, subtle changes are significant. The new small-biz Web property will be hosted on a microsoft.com domain; right now services come from bcentral.com. Jupiter Research surveys show that SMBs increasingly want to buy technology direct from the vendor rather than go through resellers or other third parties. The trend is more pronounced among the smallest SMBs. An operation coming off microsoft.com takes advantage of Microsoft’s brand equity and offers a more direct-like relationship. [Microsoft Monitor: Bye Bye bCentral, Hello SBC]
HandMark Launches Express Wireless Info Service
A potentially interesting service if you are finding that AvantGo, Hand/RSS or Plucker are not cutting it for you. Have to give it a shot and see how it compares…
HandMark touts Express as a much faster and easier method for searching with the micro-browsers found on wireless PDAs and smartphones. HandMark Express is a direct Internet client application that works via a subscription, as opposed to a web browser based service. It provides automatic and on demand updates to news, market data, weather, sports scores, maps and directions, directory lookups, movie times and ticket purchases.
Express is available for $6.99 per month and at retail with a prepaid one-year subscription for $69.90 USD. [PalmInfocenter.com]
Wireless, Cable Leading To Death Of Long Distance
Seems kinda obvious to me given unlimited fixed price wireless and wireline services. With VOIP rising strong, we’ll see even more “data” adoption as people really start dropping traditional POTS.
A new study shows that traditional landline long distance services are being supplanted by wireless services and other new technologies.
About 50 percent of the respondents in a survey released Tuesday by the Yankee Group said that some of their landline voice calls have been replaced by wireless. Overall, the respondents said that 43 percent of their long distance calls are now via wireless networks.
“As the lines between wireline and wireless product definitions blur, an undeniable connection can be traced between mobility’s expanding product scope and a decline in wireline usage,” Yankee Group senior analyst Katie Griffin said in a statement.
She also noted that wireline technology is under threat from other technologies as well. Combined, these factors will have a dramatic effect on the telecommunications sector.
“The expanding availability of cable telephony offerings is introducing alternatives to consumers,” she said. “By far, the most vulnerable area is the long-distance market. These trends have precipitated the death of distance and eventually will result in the death of the minute as the measure of the market.” [Mobile Pipeline]
Apple Rumor… March 23
“Moving pictures. Moving sound. Moving the industry. Please join Apple for a special presentation at NAB 2004 to see the latest Apple technology.” Probably just be something to do with Quicktime or the popularity of the Mac for video editing. But we like to think it has something to do with plans to introduce a video iPod. [engadget.com]
Wi-Fi SD Card with 256 MB
Don’t hold your breath for this… there have been drivers in development for a very long time…
Unfortunately, SanDisk doesn’t expect the necessary driver to allow Palm OS models to use this card to be available for many months.
SanDisk’s Wi-Fi SDIO card with 256 MB of memory will have a suggested retail price of about $150.Brighthand
Brighthand’s First Impressions of the Motorola MPx
The Motorola MPx is on display at CTIA Wireless 2004 and Brighthand’s Ed Hardy was able form some preliminary impressions of this cellular-wireless Pocket PC with an innovative shape. [Brighthand]
Sony Ericsson S700 Gallery (CeBIT ’04)
As part of our ongoing CeBIT ’04 coverage, we wanted to show you just what the new Sony Ericsson looks like. Unlike the mock-up we saw in New York, we had a good long play with a working prototype S700 at the CeBIT show, and we have plenty of photos for your enjoyment. [Mobile Burn]
Two Major Companies License the Symbian OS
LG Electronics, the world’s fifth-largest manufacturer of mobile phones, has licensed the Symbian OS and Nokia’s Series 60. Lenovo, which was already a Series 60 licensee, has just become a Symbian licensee. [Brighthand]
Inc.com | The 10 Secrets of a Master Networker
This is a great read… extremely motivating!
Keith Ferrazzi enters your life like a circus coming to town — the two ringing cell phones, the two PalmPilots, the multiple conversations in which he seems to be listening and talking simultaneously. The way he walks and looks, all tanned and fit, with the styled hair and custom suit and black Prada shoes. The deals that are hanging in the air, the favors being extended or secured, the sideshows, the laughter, the juggling. That irresistible balloon of energy. [Inc.com]
What Browser do you use?
I find myself between Safari (90%) and Firefox (10%) when I browse… I like Firefox and think it renders beautifully, does a great job with tabs and passwords (though keychain support would be great like in Camino) but I miss a few small details that work for me in Safari – all keyboard related.
I can’t get between tabs without the mouse or search google and I absolutely miss the keyboard shortcuts to initiate bookmarks in the bookmark bar. These seem minor I am sure, but to me they make a huge difference. I can’t move as quickly as I like without them.
One final missing piece is the ability to keep new windows cleanly locked to the upper left of my screen…
I guess that probably explains the balance of my usage. I bet it would be the other way if I could get better keyboard access.
BW: Plug and Play TV
This will be interesting to watch… I’d say the average TV lasts for about 10 years, but in the last 5 years we’ve had 2 types of regular cable boxes and then the addition of an integrated DVR box… soon another will come when HDTV PVR is ready. I don’t know whether consumers will be happy with a TV less capable just because it can do some tricks without a box. Kinda like it is now… actually. In some cable systems you don’t need a box to decode, but you don’t have a DVR or MOD. The box adds value – not just premium channel decoding.
Over the next six months, Sharp, Pioneer (PIO ), and Motorola (MOT ) will introduce cable-ready TVs. And such sets will account for 500,000 of the 7 million or so flat-panel TVs that will be sold in the U.S. this year, up from nearly zero in 2003, estimates Michelle Abraham, an analyst with tech consultancy Cahners In-Stat in Scottsdale, Ariz.
TIME TO ADJUST. Cable companies like this just fine. They can imagine sending new subscribers an activation card in the mail, which of course is preferable to buying millions of set-top boxes and hiring people to install them. Plus, they won’t have to deal with the 30% of customers who never return their boxes after dropping cable service, says Vamsi Sistla, an analyst with ABI Research in Oyster Bay, N.Y.
For makers of set-top boxes, however, the story is different. Motorola Broadband, Scientific-Atlanta (SFA ), Pioneer, and Pace Micro Technology will have to adjust their strategies or wither. [BW Online]
Encrypt or not to encrypt…
Funny I was just emailing about this very topic… I think I should get better acquainted with PGP again… easy enough to use with Mail as I recall with a plugin.
Personal encryption hasn’t taken off, experts say, because consumers don’t think it’s worth the trouble. “The real need for privacy hasn’t been demonstrated yet for consumer-to-consumer [e-mail],” says Jonathan Penn, a senior industry analyst at Giga Information Group.
Many free e-mail programs are targeting consumers, including 1on1mail, LokMail, PrivacyX.com and ZixMail. But the industry’s longtime darling has been Pretty Good Privacy, which nearly landed creator Phil Zimmermann in jail for violating export regulations. PGP, which Zimmermann sold to Network Associates in 1997, now boasts about 7 million users. Most of them, however, are “die-hard Phil fans and encryption gurus,” says Allison Taylor, PGP director of product marketing for Network Associates.
“Most people don’t care about encrypting their e-mail,” says Bruce Schneier, author of Applied Cryptography and CTO at Counterpane Internet Security. “You lock your front door now because you care. Your grandparents didn’t.” [CNN.com]
Shrook 2 is out
Shrook 2.0 is out is out and looks like a very slick update from where 1.0 was. I did not use it much after an initial test run, but this looks like a very interesting reader. The display supports an enhanced wide view and seems to render text in a very clean manner – much differently than NetNewsWire, though I can’t tell if that is just the font or what. I like it though…
I also like the web rendering within. There are certain sites that only offer abstracts that you can now read right from within Shrook which is a nice touch.
You can also sync your account through the Shrook service which is nice for people using 2 macs or if you are away from your computer but online via a browser interface. I’d love to see that make it’s way to wireless devices as well.
No posting capabilities… just reading and not free. It works for 30 days and imports all your groups from NNW perfectly if you want to give it a try before paying $19.95.
Later… After about an hour of usage I have to say I really like Shrook 2 with some minor exceptions. The speed is killer. I’ve got a few hundred feeds in NetNewsWire and it starts to feel heavy when you are trying to just cruise around. Shrook really jumps nicely when you are moving through a large list. Again – the text display is excellent…. very clean and easy to read. The negatives… two things really. First, It is driving me a bit nutty that you can’t get a consistent sort on feeds. Sometimes a site is listed chronologically and sometimes in the reverse. Since I have not used Shrook with my subscription file, it is pulling some old stuff and trying to recall what order someone posted in is not high on my list of priorities, yet you have to think about it often. The other detail is that when Shrook updates sites shift around and re-order on you to get to the top, listing as new. This is bad. I’d much rather see more unread in the folder for now and when I return to that group, have them reordered. Still kicking the tires… liking what I see for the most part though.
Feedburner
I am trying out this new RSS enhancement service called FeedBurner.
It’s going to allow me to do a couple things i’ve wanted to do. [A VC: FeedBurner]
Looks interesting and can handle the tweaking of your RSS for a variety of situations, like linking to amazon or converting your feed into other formats (atom perhaps). Not sure I’ll use it knowing that I have an amazon plug-in here and MT already creates an atom feed.
I did like the looks of the mobile feed reader they offer, but was amazed that it supports the Sony Ericsson P900 first – that’s got to be a first… apparently Palm support is coming so we’ll have to wait and see on that one.
Amazing and ridiculous ban on airline…
And if you want to de-stress after a tough working trip by listening to your new digital music player (eg, iPod), sorry: the Irish national airline has banned them. Again, it is out on its own on this one. The news will dismay long-haul passengers as the devices are popular in helping to while away airborne hours.
A spokesman for Aer Lingus said that the anti-iPod measure was the result of advice from a “steering group” of engineers in the airline. However, she could not provide further information as to what danger MP3 players posed to aircraft safety. [A Computers In Business survey of major airlines flying from Dublin shows that Aer Lingus is the sole carrier with the anti-iPod rule.] “We do tend to be on the conservative side in relation to personal electronic devices,” said the spokesman. [Sunday Business Post]
For Speed in Swimsuits, Add Bumps
Cool article about the developing tech in high performance swim suits. As a former competitive swimmer, I really found this of particular interest.
A new swimsuit technology increases, rather than decreases, drag to create a “tunnel” the wearer swims through. [New York Times: Business]